Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure, for example, relates to wireless communication systems, and more particularly to dynamically selecting medium access control schemes for a wireless communication systems.
Description of Related Art
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. These systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., time, frequency, and power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include code-division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time-division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency-division multiple access (FDMA) systems, and orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) systems.
By way of example, a wireless multiple-access communication system may include a number of base stations, each simultaneously supporting communication for multiple communication devices, otherwise known as user equipments (UEs). A base station may communicate with UEs on downlink channels (e.g., for transmissions from a base station to a UE) and uplink channels (e.g., for transmissions from a UE to a base station). In some examples, one or more of the base stations may communicate with UEs using directional transmissions, e.g., beamforming techniques.
Medium access control (MAC) techniques permit access to one or more channels or time frequency resources of a wireless communication system. For example, MAC algorithms may help control and reduce interference by providing for which the UE can access (e.g., transmit/receive) on a particular channel (or group of channels) and during which time interval. Typically, a MAC algorithm is predetermined and fixed within a given wireless communication system, where different wireless communication systems may utilize different MAC techniques, e.g., ranging from no MAC techniques to complicated MAC coordination. Each MAC algorithm may be associated with certain advantages, e.g., over-head, latency, robustness, etc. Existing wireless communication systems that use fixed MAC techniques, however, do not permit flexibility in MAC algorithm selection and therefore fail to capture beneficial aspects of one MAC algorithm for a given situation as compared to beneficial aspects of a second MAC algorithm in a different situation.